Experts: Nobel a Gift and a Curse for Obama

WASHINGTON (Dec. 10) -- President Obama sent a clear signal Thursday in his acceptance speech that the Noble Peace Prize won't get in the way of choosing war over peace when necessary. But his critics likely will wield the award as a weapon against him as he makes those decisions.

"His critics on both right and left will use it a lot. It's a ready-made line in an age of sound bites," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Liberals will scold him if he wages more war after being lauded for peace. And conservatives will accuse him of kowtowing to the Nobel committee if he doesn't take strong enough military actions, Sabato said.

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The tests that Obama faces next include nuclear nonproliferation negotiations with Russia, a stagnant Middle East peace process, gleaning international cooperation on climate change issues, finding international agreement for dealing with Iran and its nuclear program, preventing North Korea from expanding its nuclear program, withdrawing from Iraq, winning European military and humanitarian help for the effort in Afghanistan and eventually the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

"There are so many front-burner issues confronting the Obama administration right now," said Spencer Bakich, assistant professor of international affairs at Sweet Briar College, who studies the intersection of political and military policy. "In no way do I get the sense he will let that prize strongly influence the decisions he will be confronting."

Indeed, Obama's controversial decision to escalate the U.S. effort in Afghanistan by adding 30,000 troops came after he already had been announced as this year's peace prize winner. And his Thursday speech about war being "just" in some circumstances, Bakich said, is "a clear indication for him that what matters most is American national security interests."

The prize already has given Obama an international platform – through today's speech – to lay out his vision of when conflict is necessary. Thomas Donnelly, director of the Center for Defense Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, was surprised at how he used that platform. Obama's argument that armed conflict is sometimes justified and war is part of human nature is a conservative view, he said.

"He certainly accepted a reality in many ways he spent the previous nine months trying to avoid," Donnelly said. Donnelly said Obama can make that argument to a skeptical Europe in a way that President George W. Bush could not. "He is a very good messenger to sober people up."

But Heather Conley, senior fellow at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Middle East peace process is an example of how the cache of the peace prize hasn't translated into results for Obama.

"The hope and optimism was that the president would be able to use his international political capital ... to try to move that process along. It has not borne out," said Conley, director of the Europe Program at CSIS.

Nor will Obama likely tout his achievement, according to Sabato and others."The American public has already spoken – two-thirds or more in polls have said Obama doesn't deserve this prize," Sabato said.

It's unclear whether the prize will play in the back of Obama's mind as he makes decisions about war and peace. But, Sabato said, "he may try to earn the award most consider unearned by undertaking humanitarian actions that may be unpopular politically."

For example, Sabato said, he might commit U.S. resources in the troubled Darfur region of Africa, or after a major natural disaster like a tsunami.

But Obama's speech Thursday made it clear that the peace prize won't stop him from going to war again if necessary. And he called out Iran and North Korea for a warning. "It was a clear message to both of them that they are on probation," Sabato said.

Iran's lack of compliance with international arms regulators could lead to a U.N. Security Council vote that will require Obama's diplomacy to find an agreement on how to handle the issue, Conley said. "That will be an enormous test," she said. As will the January meeting of European leaders on how much military and development aid they will commit to the renewed effort in Afghanistan.

And foreign affairs experts say there are so many hot spots in the world – from Pakistan to South America to the Middle East – that other issues of war may add to the agenda.

Obama was criticized for taking a peace prize after ramping up the military effort in Afghanistan. And if he wages another war in the future, critics will use the same stick to beat him, Donnelly said. "Some people will not be able to resist it."